Commercial Benefits Of The Internet And WWW

Author: Richard D S Hill

We read some reports recently about SMEs and the internet / www - they make fascinating reading.

The internet and world wide web [www] are acknowledged as a highly cost-effective and flexible business tool, but research by Dynamic Markets for internet service provider UK Online found that small companies in the UK are not using the internet for business as much as the general population.

They found that barely a third of UK businesses with one to 10 employees have an internet subscription compared to over half of the UK population as a whole. Of those, over a third uses a consumer rather than a business account. Of those with internet access nearly one in five is using dial-up. Just over one in five have a business email address and fewer than half have a website at all.

"I was surprised by the low level of internet use," said UK Online managing director Chris Stenning. "I was expecting the figure to be nearer 70-80 per cent. It does show that the smallest businesses have not grasped the benefits of the internet."

However, research late last year for Microsoft by Burlington Consultants and by Institute of Directors (IoD) for Dell suggested that for the 85,000 UK medium sized firms with 25 to 1,000 employees, 84 per cent see the internet and www as a vital enabler. Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at research firm Canalys, said that while small firms tend to be more concerned about hardware, mid-sized firms concentrate on software and the internet /www because as they grow they realise that these are the most important to their business and success.

Jim Norton, senior policy advisor on IT IoD, said the key to understanding mid-market firms is that many are in a state of transition. They have demonstrated the ambition and ability to grow from a small start-up into something more substantial, possibly involving diversification into new products, markets or regions. Now they face the challenge of creating or improving internal processes and management structures to support and build on this success where IT and the internet / www were central to this.

However, many medium-sized firms are losing revenue because they do not submit their web sites to search engines and are therefore missing potential visitors and custom, according to new research by web hosting firm Fasthosts.

In a survey of 2,094 small and medium-sized businesses, nearly half said they did not submit their sites to any search engines, according to Fasthosts' SMEs On The Web report. And two-thirds of internet users said they only look at the first two pages of search results. "The principal issue is a lack of knowledge about search engines," said Fasthost's chief executive Andrew Michael. "There is still a misperception among SMEs that elevating your web presence and optimising your web site for search engines is some kind of black art."

Meanwhile, another survey has highlighted the growing importance of the web to medium sized firms' marketing strategies. According to WebTrends' CMO Web-Smart Report, most organisations plan to increase their investment in web marketing. WebTrends questioned 250 executives and more than 50 percent said the web was either at the hub of their organisation's marketing strategy, or would achieve this position in the next year. More than 80 percent said they planned to increase investment in the web over the coming year, but most rated their firms' collective knowledge of the latest web marketing trends and technologies as poor.

So, hoping to make life easier for everyone we designed this simple diagram and provide these simple definitions and list some of the benefits of using the internet and www.

GO TO http://www.e-crm.co.uk/profile/ebusiness.html TO SEE THIS DIAGRAM

The big wide world:

• Suspects: people or organizations, known or unknown, who make up the market.

• Prospects: suspects that 'tell' the organization they are interested in learning more about their products or services.

• Customers: people or organizations that pay for goods or services.

• Suppliers: people or organizations that supply a product not manufactured by the company.

• Internet: network of computer networks which operates world-wide using a common set of communications protocols.

• World wide web [www]: information and resources available through the Internet.

The organization:

• Organization: a group of people who work together with a common purpose.

• Emarketing: identifying, anticipating and supplying customer's requirements efficiently and effectively using the internet and www.

• ECRM: all aspects of interaction an organization has with its customers, whether sales or service related using the internet and www.

• Databases: collections of information that have been systematically organized for easy access and analysis.

• Intranet: a network within an organization that uses Web technologies for the sharing of information internally.

• Extranet: a network that uses Web technologies to link organizations with suppliers, customers and others outside the organization.

• Ecommerce website: conducting business online via a website.

• Search engine optimization: increasing visitors, prospects & customers for a Web site by improved ranking in the results of search engines.

• Email: exchange of electronic messages & computer files between computers connected to the Internet or some other computer network.

• Web conferencing / support: enables two or more logged in users to have share screens and even access each others computers.

• Email marketing: marketing via email with the results being completely measurable.

• Pay per click marketing: advertising where one pays depending on the number of times the published ad is clicked on.

• Telemarketing: sales and service using the telephone.

• VOIP: using the internet for telephone conversations.

• SMS marketing: sending messages of up to 160 characters to mobile phones.

• Analytics: programmes that help organizations analyze data to create information for making decisions.

Some of the benefits

• Increase sales

• Decrease costs

• Increase profits

• Expands the size of the market from regional to national or national to international

• Contact the market

• Customization of products

• Increases productivity

• Improve customer service

• Reach out to new and existing audiences

• Build relationships and gather information about what interests and motivates them

• Drive action by using that knowledge to communicate with them in a personalized and cost-effective manner that drives higher response

• Develop loyalty by communicating regularly and rewarding audiences for their involvement

• Run business applications from anywhere

• Cost reductions in printing and document distribution

• Reduction of time spent on looking and searching for information

• Empowered and better educated staff and improved internal communications, access and retention of company knowledge

• Enabling collaboration to speed up the development and approval processes and reduce the need for meetings

• Track who is using what information, and how they are using it

• Providing a single user interface between organization and suppliers

• Improved business relationships with key suppliers joining up the supply chain with online ordering, order tracking & inventory management

• Improving customer service by giving customers direct access to information and enabling them to resolve their own queries

• Improving the quality and security of communications with suppliers and distributor

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/commercial-benefits-of-the-internet-and-www-189689.html

About the Author
Richard Hill is a director of E-CRM Solutions and has spent many years in senior direct and interactive marketing roles. E-CRM provides EBusiness, ECommerce and Emarketing and ECRM.

Website Marketing Strategies That Work

Author: Sarika Kabra

For each website that you own you have a goal. It can be to generate a fixed amount of traffic in a certain number of days. Or maybe you are looking to generate a certain number of sales leads if you are selling something from the website. It could even be an annual financial goal for the earnings that you expect to generate from the website. To help you meet these goals you need to use some website marketing strategies. These options will differ according to your goals. Here we discuss a couple of them.

What's the Goal?

Ann Arbor web site marketing takes on a number of projects to popularize websites online. The first question that the Michigan web marketing specialist is likely to ask you is what is the goal of your website? A lot of people want to market their website but are not sure about what the actual goal of the marketing campaign is. Not having a clear and measurable goal is the best way to fail at making a successful marketing strategy. It is like setting for hunting for buried treasure without a map or a clue to which direction you are supposed to head in.

Michigan web marketing services need to know just what you want to do with the website. The goals can be short term, medium term and long term. That means you do not have to have just one goal, but instead a series of smaller attainable goals which will ultimately lead you to the main goal you have in mind. The idea is to divide the big end goal into smaller goals that can be achieved in a set time frame. That way you know all along if you are meeting your goals or if you need to work harder or maybe change the marketing strategies that you are using. Of course you must remember to make your goals as realistic as possible.

Make a Plan:

Just as important as it is to get a well defined goal, it is necessary to have an action plan to gain the objective. If you have enough money to spare you can go all out with website marketing and buy all the traffic that you need to meet your goals. This is possible using PPC or Pay Per Click advertising. This helps you bring in targeted traffic which is actually searching for the product or service that your website is based on. Such traffic is far more likely to convert into sales.

However in most cases the website owner is looking at organic traffic because there is not enough cash flow to buy the traffic. Or for them to have large sustained marketing campaigns in PPC networks. If you are looking at generating organic unpaid traffic one of the best strategies is to drive traffic from search engines using targeted keywords on your website and in the content. This is known as SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

It is perfectly possible for a website owner to train himself in using both these strategies and making a killing, but if you are new to the online marketing business, it can be tough. Instead of going crazy trying to do everything on your own, it may make more sense to get in professionals to do the difficult chores for you.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/web-design-articles/website-marketing-strategies-that-work-2144699.html

About the Author

If you are thinking of launching your own website or blog, consider using Ann Arbor hosting services. This Ann Arbor ecommerce company can help you with all your web design and marketing needs. In Michigan search engine optimization services are best provided by them.

Affiliate Marketing

Author: Alan Smith

Hey there affiliate marketers!

It is no surprise that affiliate marketing has emerged as one of the fastest growing professions in the Internet industry. Unfortunately statistics show there are more newbie who fail affiliate marketing than ones who actually succeed and earn a living off of affiliate marketing.

Some people are attracted to affiliate marketing simply because they believe it is an easy way of making money online with little effort. Well, they soon find out that “easy money” is as real as a Hollywood action film. Affiliate marketing is just like any other profession. It requires hours of work, dedication, will to learning, and self discipline in order to be successful. Sometimes it may take years before you will begin collecting the fruits. Therefore, many newbie simply tired out and give up.

Another reason newbie affiliate marketers tend to fail is because they do not focus on one niche. Newbie believe that if they try to promote several products from different markets at the same time, believing that by doing this they will increase their revenue. That is a big mistake. In order to be a successful affiliate marketer one must focus on one niche, master it and know its market inside out.

After a newbie focuses on one market he or she will give its full attention to that specific product/market. That alone will increase one’s chances in seeing results. Second, choosing the right niche is just as important as focusing on one market. In most cases you will find that successful affiliate marketers believe in what they promote, and actually like the product they promote. If you like shoes, promote shoes. If you like bikes, promote bikes, or bike parts. If you like music, promote ringtones. But now comes the third step, before you decide to promote what you like; you must interrogate the market and see if it profitable to promote that specific product.

I myself found myself active in ringtones and mobile content industry due to my love of music. But I would not have not gone into this industry had it not been such a profitable industry: In 2006, the mobile content and services market was estimated at $89.3 billion. The market is expected to reach $151.2 billion by 2011.

This brings me to the next topic: Competition and who can I trust? First off, competition exists in every profitable industry, as once said, “Competition brings prosperity”. Competition can be a good thing. It forces companies to improve their services and products! The key here is to find the right company that works for you. Who can I trust? Most affiliate marketers, who get comfortable in one Affiliate Program, tend to stay with it. They know the program, they are comfortable with their payments terms and most importantly they know their account managers who make sure to keep them happy.

This article is brought to you about Alan Smith, Head of Public Relations (PR) at RingtonePartner.com

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-promotion-articles/affiliate-marketing-516165.html

About the Author

With over 5 years of experience in the Internet Affiliate Marketing World. Alan Smith is the Head of Publish Relations at RingtonePartner.com The largest and most comprehensive affiliate program in the mobile content industry.